The summit of Mount Erebus casts a long shadow out over the Ross Sea. Mount Erebus is the most active volcano in Antarctica—and one of a few in the world with a permanent lake of molten lava in its crater.

When it erupts—which no one can predict—the volcano "will create millions of gallons of water beneath the ice—many lakes full," study leader Doug Wiens, professor of earth and planetary science at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement.

This water will rush beneath the ice toward the sea and feed into one of the major ice streams that drain ice from Antarctica into the Ross Ice Shelf, Wiens explained.

What's new?

The new volcano's discovery was accidental. In January 2010, scientists set up a series of seismometers, or earthquake detectors, on Marie Byrd Land, a highland region of West Antarctica.

The instruments array detected two swarms of earthquakes about one year apart, in 2010 and 2011. The earthquakes were small, with magnitudes of between 0.8 and 2.1.

The tremors occurred at depths of about 15 to 25 miles (25 to 40 kilometers), close to the boundary between the crust and the mantle, and much deeper than normal crustal earthquakes.

The depth at which the quakes occurred, as well as their low frequency, suggests they might be so-called Deep Long Period earthquakes, or DPLs, which occur in volcanic areas.

"People aren't really sure what causes DPLs," said Amanda Lough, a postdoctoral student in Wiens's lab and the first author of the study, said in a statement.

"It seems to vary by volcanic complex, but most people think it's the movement of magma and other fluids that leads to pressure-induced vibrations in cracks within volcanic and hydrothermal systems."

Why is the discovery important?

Lough and her team say it's not a matter of if the newly discovered volcano will erupt, but when. "It most likely has erupted before," Lough said. (Watch video: Volcanoes 101.)

That's because the volcano sits atop a raised portion of land that the team believes is composed of previously erupted material.

What would happen in an eruption?

The volcano is covered by more than half a mile (one kilometer) of ice, so it would have to be an extraordinarily powerful eruption to breach the surface.

However, the heat from the volcano could increase melting at the base of the glacier and meltwater could act like a lubricant that makes the overlying ice flow out to sea faster. Global sea levels could rise by a small amount as a result.

"We're not talking about an eruption causing the ice sheet to melt and cause catastrophic sea-level rise," Lough told National Geographic.

"This volcanic complex has been operating for millions of years ... There have been past eruptions of this system and the ice has survived for millions of years, [so] future eruptions alone will not cause the ice sheet to fail."

What's next?

Most of the seismometers used to discover the volcano have been removed and installed in other areas in Antarctica, so further study of its seismic activity is no longer possible.

But Lough said she hopes scientists will continue to study the volcano using other instruments.

"I'm really excited because this paper has stirred up a lot of interest in the glaciology community," she said, "and hopefully someone there will take up the challenge to answer the questions of what are the possible outcomes."

Since we know that scientist has study and know there Volcanoes under some bodies of water. We also know that all Continents was once all connect. We also know that Trench and Earthquakes shift and push new Islands to surfaces in different areas of the Planet. I guess my question would be what be possible of it causing massive Earthquake and how much damage could it cause? Would it or could it send a chain reaction to other Earthquakes?

Very interesting article! Although Amanda Lough feels that the impact won't be "catastrophic," I feel it can be. The impact of the previous eruptions from millions of years may not have caused the ice sheets to fail but, I feel the circumstances today are different. Today there is a greater amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causing the greenhouse effect to melt ice prior to any eruptions. Since the ice's stability has been compromised due to these gases and increased temperatures, I feel that these recent eruptions yet to come can cause the ice sheets to fail. I highly support further research and exploring on this topic because Earth has such a complex system. Any change such as a rise in global sea levels can lead to many other problems that we may not even be aware of.

See, another way of proving that we have no idea what's going on with climate change. I mean, this is just another way of showing that Earth is going through(I think anyways) possibly a historical pattern never recorded before. Who knows? C:

Since the Eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, we have had hundreds of other volcanic eruptions that have not doomed mankind. I love science, but I hate using science to sell books and advance political agendas. Maybe someone could determine why volcanic eruptions do not cause permanent damage to the atmosphere. I agree that heavy industry has caused unnecessary damage to our earth; look into how the earth cleans itself and determine how to manage our waste better. make our waste easier for the environment to absorb?

Nuclear energy science, to my knowledge, has not found a safe way to eliminate the waste and continues to say how clean and safe it is....

Sent said outright it wasn't going to contribute significantly to sea levels... Moron... You must be a bible basher, you only read the parts that can be misinterpreted to support your opinion and run with it.

@Pritheesh Mallya What human contribution to Glacial melt? Here we are a year later and Antarctic pack is at record levels.

Arctic
ice pack, after going through a normal cyclical melt, is double what it
was last year which was double what it had been the year before. The
Arctic sea ice pack is building at phenomenal rates, and contrary to
intentional alteration of ice maps, land based ice changed very
little...and is now also building at very high rates

@Pritheesh Mallya that's not what the scientific reports coming out this week are claiming. These reports say the melting is mainly from warmer waters coming from below the ocean not from air temperatures above the ice.

@Sudharma Daine Antarctica lies in the middle of the Antarctic plate where no major plate boundary exists. The volcano is most likely a hot spot volcano, the likes of which exist in the interior of plates, with a direct magma source tapping directly to the mantle. In saying that however, the volcano could also be the result of rifting of the west antarctic region (which we know has occurred in the past). However very little is known about the tectonics of the Antarctic landmass itself because of the overlying ice. It will be very interesting to see what happens :)

@Windy Bolton No, to my knowledge neither of those scenarios are possible with this volcano. One would need atleast a super-volcano like that beneath Yellowstone Nat. Park to produce any possible effects on other seismic systems elsewhere.

@Joseph MartinIt is
truly amazing that these "alarmist"such as Joseph
Martin can not be happy when the data proves them to be wrong about their
devil in the sky, CO2.They should be
happy when there has been no warming for 18 years but for some demented reason
theydo not want to believe that fact
any more than they want to believe that volcanoes can cause ice sheets to melt.

@Joseph Martin you mean "Anthropogenic" climate science deniers, right? Because volcanoes warming the waters below wouldn't support Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) very well, huh? Especially when it comes to the Antarctic ice melting, which is almost always cited by the AGW proponents as being evidence or in their eyes "proof" of the AGW hypothesis. The real deniers are the ones that exclude any and all natural causes and focus only on the man-made climate change mantra. This is an example of why "consensus" is not very relevant to true science. Scientific Reports out this week citing Oceanic Forcing as the main contributor to the Antarctic ice melting demonstrate that all too well.

It's time to unite and focus on how to adapt to the Earth's ever-changing climate. The AGW science fiction is at best counter-productive. There simply are too many forces at work that humans have no control over.

@Todd Comer are we talking about reasonably minded people who are open minded to new facts or just those blinded by extreme environmentalist ideology? It will have little to no impact on the latter. They will deny any scientific findings in conflict with their ideology.

@Swiftright Right You miss the point. The millions of gallons of water will act as a lubricant for the ice overheady, moving it more quickly into the seas around antarctica. This could contribute to measurable see level increases.

Because of global tectonic plates are moving and global volcanic eruption, that volcano found under Antarctic ice eruption would raise sea levels due to collapse of West Antarctic. That would wake up world due to 80% of world population are in coast areas.

@Darel Coterel The forces at work that humans have no control over aren't causing a problem.

There are numerous lines of evidence that make the case for AGW, not just one line of evidence. Those lines of evidence include looking at forcings that are not caused by humans and noticing that those forcings do not explain increased temperatures.

There are multiple reasons for reducing our carbon footprint (acidification of oceans, air pollution, ...) other than AGW.

"Ocean Forcing melted the ice" does not support your hypothesis that there is no anthropogenic warming. You have to show that the ocean currents changed in response to something other than AGW, and that the water temperatures did not increase due to AGW.

@P. Brown@Swiftright Right And your not appreciating just how small amount a "million gallons of water" is. Two Olympic swimming pools are well over "a million gallons of water"

Just do some simple off hand math. 6 inches of water spread over 1 square mile is over 200 million gallons. even if 1 square mile worth of ice magically slid into the ocean it still would have no perceptible change on sea levels.

@Ghee Sg@Tim Marcinowski@Sudharma Daine Wake up to what? Wake up to the facts that this cannot be attributed to anthropogenic caused climate change (though I am sure some will try to make that claim)? Or, are you saying they will wake us as the tide comes in a little bit higher every year?

@Chet Esium@Darel Coterel It really would be better if the current conditions of the planet actually supported the theoretical AGW predicted, and then pronounced "settled science, meltdown of planet earth.

CO2 levels have been much higher in the past, indicating a natural fluctuation, and research has shown that increased CO2 levels are a result of past warming manifesting increased concentration that take hundreds of years to peak...even after sea surface have dropped. As the seas stay cold, the CO2 is gradually reabsorbed.

@Swiftright Right@P. Brown Except that we aren't talking about 1 square mile of ice sliding into the sea faster. We are talking about 2 million square kilometers of ice (up to 2km thick, but averaging 1km thick) sliding into the ocean.